16 February 2014

Press release

Glasgow (16 Feb)
– A new
child protection law scheduled for a parliamentary vote on 19 February is on
course for a head-on collision with international conventions, warns Evangelical
Alliance Scotland.

The Alliance Scotland has called on
Aileen Campbell, minister for children and young people, to sit with opponents
to discuss the bill and arrive at a consensus.

The Alliance, which represents more
than 750 organisations and two million evangelical Christians in 3,500 churches
across 79 denominations in UK, says the broad brush approach by the Alex Salmond
administration to assign a state guardian known as a 'named person' to each of
the 1,042,597
children across Scotland, runs counter to the UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child as well as the European Convention on Human Rights
(ECHR).

The government has said that these
named persons would be a health visitor in the early years and later a senior
teacher or head teacher. The idea is to safeguard against child
abuse.

"While we do not doubt the
government's sincere intentions behind this bill these proposals raise serious
concerns about the role of the state in modern Scotland, have massive
implications for the role of parents and appear to be begging for a fight in the
law courts as some parents may wish to challenge it because it is not
immediately apparent whether it is lawful under the ECHR," says Fred Drummond, director of Evangelical Alliance
Scotland.

Article 8 of the ECHR protects the
private life of individuals against arbitrary interference by public authorities
and covers four distinct areas including private life, family life, and the
home.

In addition, the named person
provision violates the obligations of the UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child (CRC) which the government is seeking to implement in this bill.

Article 5 of the CRC makes it clear
that governments must respect the rights and responsibilities of parents to
guide and advise their children while Article 16 states that no child should be
subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy or
family and must have the right of the protection of the law against such
interference.

A major concern is what happens when
the opinion of the named person conflicts with that of the parent over how the
child is being raised. This could have massive implications and an overburdening
of the system if children are going to be referred to social services as a
result of misunderstanding or misrepresentations.

"As a parent I am horrified and I am
sure that parents across Scotland will be horrified to learn that the state can
override their wishes particularly as there is no provision in the bill for
consent from or withdrawal by either parent or child," says
Drummond.

"At the Evangelical Alliance we
fundamentally believe in the positive role of families which is why we are so
concerned by the named person provision of this bill. It's the second
anti-family bill in recent weeks. There are enormous civil liberties
implications raised by these proposals that fundamentally endanger the rights of
families in Scotland to a private and family life. We are deeply concerned that
their approach will undermine the place of family, when the strongest, best and
most secure context for the vast majority of Scottish children lies at home with
loving parents," adds the Alliance director.

Dr Dave Landrum, director of advocacy at the Evangelical
Alliance, says: "At a time when family life is becoming increasingly difficult,
these proposals seek to complicate it further by undermining parental authority
with state interference."

Media Enquiries

Notes to Editors

The Evangelical Alliance
We are the largest and oldest body representing the UK’s two million evangelical Christians. For more than 165 years, we have been bringing Christians together and helping them listen to, and be heard by, the government, media and society. We’re here to connect people for a shared mission, whether it’s celebrating the Bible, making a difference in our communities or lobbying the government for a better society. From Skye to Southampton, from Coleraine to Cardiff, we work across 79 denominations, 3,500 churches, 750 organisations and thousands of individual members. And we're not just uniting Christians within the UK – we are a founding member of the World Evangelical Alliance, a global network of more than 600 million evangelical Christians. For more information, go to www.eauk.org.

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